What do you do when your industry dies?

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I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a kid — and have the childhood diary proclaiming this fact to prove it.

During my freshman year of college, my most curmudgeonly professor asked us, “Do you really want to take the vow of poverty and become a journalist?” “YES!” I thought as my heart swelled.

I wanted nothing more.

Freedom of the press was something I held sacred, for better or worse as it turned out. During my junior year, I reported on a physical fight between two professors in the university newspaper, which ended that gig. No matter. I moved on — to The Miami Herald, then Reuters, all before my 23^rd birthday. By the time I reached Columbia University for my masters in journalism, I was confident in this one (important) part of my life. My first job? Being a reporter at the prestigious New York magazine.

Things just flowed. It was what I was meant to do.

After stints at Us Weekly and In Touch — the celeb weeklies were hot, hot, hot back then — I realized that reaching “the top” of national magazines in NYC was too cutthroat for me. So I redefined success for my own life — I wanted to run celebratory local magazines, with my own (soon achieved) goal of being an editor-in-chief before I turned 30. I loved being a part of my community and telling the stories of the people that made each adopted hometown thrive. I did this four times.

But along the way, my industry basically…died.

So what do you do when you were born to do something, you become the best you can be at it and have a promising future…and then it all just ceases to exist.

Of course there is still journalism, but I just don’t like it anymore. Here are just a few complaints:

• Victim shaming—the language used when reporting on victims is often downright shameful

• Misleading headlines—anything for a click

• Polarizing—“Republicans” or “Democrats” did XYZ. No, this particular Congressperson did that. This creates the illusion that you must jump onboard and be all in. Nuance? Debate on particular topics? Ha. Gone. Us vs them, blue vs red, “right” vs “wrong.” I hate it.

• Lack of money—with freelance articles now paying between $25 and $200 each, you can no longer sustain a career as a freelancer, which used to be how publications got a lot of their best stories

• Google and AI—that death march will need its own post

I could go on. So what do I do? Thankfully, there are all kinds of jobs out there that use skills that journalists have in spades. But how do you shift from doing what you love to do, what you were born to do, to something that just pays the bills? So many friends of mine have done it, and I think I can, too. But I’ve noticed a certain malaise when it comes to going over and beyond to go after certain jobs—because my heart isn’t in it. Without the passion that has driven me for decades, how do you get motivated to do all the extra steps to even apply?

In today’s online job market, thousands of applicants hit up every job posting. How do you get past the HR keyword algorithms? There are ways (stay tuned for a future post), but it’s a lot more work. You really have to find a job you want and target it. But I ask one more time, how do you drum up the motivation to do all that when deep down you’re still grieving the end of what you thought you’d be doing for the rest of your life?

I thought my journalism work would be my legacy. “No one dies thinking about their work” doesn’t apply to people in the creative fields, or hybrid ones like mine.

On the outside, I am cavalierly looking for a dorky, boring steady job to pay my bills and complement my lower-paying (because that’s where we are now with the under-appreciated world of journalism) writing gigs. All while coming to terms with the death of my career as I thought it would be.

The media, sigh, just isn’t what it used to be. I don’t really want to be a part of it, but it’s tearing me up leaving it as well. Thankfully, the writing gigs I do have are wonderful. I just need to buck up and find something different that pays the bills.

Mid-life transition is a tricky thing.